Red Wings refuse to blame incompetent referees for loss, say they must play better

Of the Detroit Red Wings' ten penalties taken in their 4-3 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Sunday, it's entirely possible that two or three were actually legitimate calls; otherwise, Brad Watson and Kevin Pollock looked like a pair of officials looking to make calls based upon instructions to "crack down," and they called the Red Wings for assumed instead of actual infractions.

I've stated my take on the subject, and the Detroit News's Chris McCosky agrees that the officials often rewarded the Sharks, Evgeni Nabokov included, for diving and "selling" calls, but the Red Wings themselves chose not to blame the officials for their loss, nor the 16-to-8 penalty disparity over 2 games, as NHL.com's Rick Sadowski noted:

May 3, NHL.com: "Any way you look at it, you're not going to win many games being
shorthanded 10 times," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "I don't know
if we were first or second as far as being the least-penalized team in
the League during the regular season. Obviously after the first two
games we have to look after our sticks and have to kill penalties
because we're going to the box way too much."

[Joe] Pavelski, who has four power-play goals in the first two games of the
series, tied the score during a two-man advantage at 4:40 of the third
period with Todd
Bertuzzi (holding) and Niklas Kronwall
(hooking) sitting side by side in the penalty box.

Bertuzzi was called for two penalties on Sunday, and he committed neither one.

"It's frustrating," said Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard,
who faced 20 shots while his team was shorthanded, 45 shots overall.
"You can't give a team like that that many power plays. They're going to
make you pay. The five-on-threes, it's tough. You can't give those guys
that. They have five guys that can bury it."

The captain showed remarkable restraint:

"We put ourselves in penalty problems again and they got the tying goal
on a five-on-three, so we have to do a better job of not being in the
box," [Nicklas] Lidstrom said. "We have to keep our sticks down and keep moving
our feet."

The Red Wings were penalized five times in the third period -- one more
time than the Sharks were for the entire game -- and shot themselves in
the skate with 1:04 to play when they were assessed a penalty for too
many men on the ice.

Yes, the Wings had seven men on the ice, but the Sharks helped that call along by both firing the puck at the Wings' bench during a line change and then mucking it up there, engaging in roughhousing that forced the referees' hands.

"I don't know how many minutes we were shorthanded in the third,"
Babcock said. "Obviously it got them right back in the game. That's
three times in this series we've been scored on with three guys on the
ice. You're not going to win like that. There's no sense questioning anything except we're in charge and we
can't be going to the box. We have to look after our own sticks and our
own play. The reality is you can't have momentum when half the players
don't get on the ice because they're sitting the penalty box all night
long. It's pretty hard to get anything going."

Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg took the high road as well, as the Mercury News's Mark Emmons noted...

May 3, Mercury News: "Of course there were a lot of penalties," center Pavel Datsyuk said. "But we need to be more careful and not give up so many power plays."

Not only were the Red Wings sent to the box more often, but they also sometimes had company in their confinement. Joe Pavelski scored the tying goal early in the third period when the Sharks were on a two-man advantage with Bertuzzi and Niklas Kronwall serving time.

"It's tough when you're down two men on the ice," left wing Henrik Zetterberg said. "You can't really let it get to you. You just have to go out and play. Hopefully, eventually, they will turn on your side."

It didn't happen Sunday, as the Sharks took a 2-0 lead in this second-round series. The plethora of penalties was out of character for the usually disciplined Red Wings. During the season, they averaged the second-least penalty minutes per game in the NHL, behind only Nashville. But at HP Pavilion, the Red Wings were called for one thing after another. Slashing. Hooking. Holding. Tripping. Goalie Interference. Cross checking. The referees gave their whistles a workout. Then any chance the Red Wings had to send the game into overtime with a late desperation goal ended when they were called for having too many men on the ice. They played the final 1:04 with a man disadvantage as the Sharks patiently killed off the final seconds.

"There was a parade to the box," Babcock said. "Obviously our guys felt frustrated, but there's no sense feeling frustrated...."We know that's a good team
and that they played well all season," Datsyuk said of the Sharks. "But
we play much better against them when it's five-on-five."

As the Detroit Free Press's Steve Schrader noted, however, even Versus' announcers, who rarely question the NHL's infallibility, dared to speak out of turn regarding the ridiculousness of the evening's shenanigans:

May 3, Detroit Free Press: OK, guilty. Hockeytown likes to complain about officiating, especially this time of year. So instead of going that route the second game in a row, I'll let the numbers do the talking: San Jose had 10 power plays in Sunday night's 4-3 win -- including a couple five-on-threes -- to just four for the Red Wings. What is this, the NBA? Home team gets to go to the line more?

And if the numbers don't speak loudly enough, here's a neutral voice, Versus analyst Daryl Reaugh, who again didn't think much of the officiating, this time by Kevin Pollock and Brad Watson.

"I think you have to add 'allegedly' to most of these calls here tonight," Reaugh said.

That was early in the second period, after a goalie interference call against Todd Bertuzzi. And it didn't get any better. Reaugh sounded off again after a third-period call against Bertuzzi.

"Holding? Wow. Really," he said. "He's taken two penalties in the first eight games of the playoffs this year and has taken eight tonight. I don't know that either one of them was actually an infraction."

Now me: With bad officiating, I usually figure it'll all even out. But this was ridiculous. Any more of this and the Sharks won't even have to bother diving anymore.

As the CBC's series blogger notes, the Red Wings do not question the obvious:

1.The Sharks have out-played them over the first ten minutes of each game;

2. The Sharks continue to block and force the Wings to send as many shots wide as they fire on the net (the Wings took 31 shots on Nabokov, fired 12 wide, and had 15 blocked for a total of 58 attempted shots) while out-shooting Detroit by a substantial margin;

3. The Sharks are obviously deadly on special teams;

4. The Wings clearly have no answer for Joe Pavelski, and that's scary;

5. Winning 26 faceoffs and losing 38 (that's a 38% winning percentage) obviously means that Detroit has allowed the Sharks to not out-possess the puck and dictate the pace of game against a team which must sustain puck possession to win;

6. The Wings also remain too content to give up the blueline to streaking Sharks charging through the neutral zone, while their own transition game remains slow, stilted, and plagued with too many passes backward.

Babcock discussed the Wings' inability to win faceoffs with the CBC's blogger...

May 3, CBC Sports: The NHL's best faceoff team during the regular season, the Sharks
continue to dominate at the dot in the playoffs and won 62 per cent of
the faceoffs in Game 2, led by Pavelski, who won 13-of-16 draws.

"We've
got to do a way better job in the faceoff circle," Babcock said. "They
had the puck way too much."..."It's really about puck
possession," Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov said. "We are like them, a
puck-possession team. When two good teams are meeting, whoever is
controlling the puck, either in the offensive zone or the neutral zone .
. . well, sometimes offence is the best defence."

As such...

The last time the Wings fell behind 2-0 in a series was also against a
California-based team, and it didn't turn out too well. Detroit
dropped the first two games to the Anaheim Ducks in the opening round of
the 2003 playoffs, and ended up being swept.

"We've got to make
it a series, because right now, it isn't," Detroit coach Mike Babcock
said. "We have to answer the call and hold serve at home. If we can do
that, then we're back here for a best-of-three."

The Sharks,
meanwhile, didn't enjoy prosperity the last time they jumped ahead 2-0
in a set. That was in the second round of the 2006 playoffs,
when San Jose grabbed a 2-0 advantage over the Edmonton Oilers. Edmonton
then won the next four games to take the series in six.

The Wings also talked about their desire to "hold serve" by improving with NHL.com's Rick Sadowski:

May 3, NHL.com: "Every time we go home, we're happy," Red Wings forward Pavel Datsyuk
said after Sunday's defeat put them down 2-0 in the series. "We lost
today, it doesn't matter what I say. We're going back home and we need
to win the game."..."Well, the big thing is, no fans ever scored any goals," Red Wings coach
Mike Babcock said. "Let's get that straight. But the reality is, we've
been a pretty good team all year. We've played better on the road in the
playoffs, to tell you the truth. But now we've got to go home and we've
got to get ourselves regrouped. We'll stay here tonight, we have a travel day tomorrow and we have lots
of time to get things straightened out and get ourselves ready to play.
We have to answer the call and hold serve at home. As long as you hold
serve at home, then you're back here for a best of three."
...
"It'll be nice to get home ice again," Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom
said. "We're down 2-0 in this series, but we're heading home. It's
going to be an important Game 3 coming up in Detroit. We're confident
playing at home, but playoffs is different than the regular season. We
know we have to play a lot better for 60 minutes to have success against
this team.

"A few minutes here and there, I think we've played some pretty good
hockey, so you have to take the good things that we did and take those
back home. I think we did play a lot better once we settled down again. We have to
keep doing the good things that we're doing out there. We have to stay
out of the box a little bit more, but we're doing a lot of good things
five on five."

The Wings understand that they can't let the Sharks jump all over them when the puck drops, either:

"The first 10 minutes in this series has been bad," Red Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg
said. "After that, we've been playing pretty good hockey. We have to
make some adjustments, I think, on special teams and try and stay out of
the box. We're looking forward to going home. We've been out for a week now.
It's nice to be home and to see the families and spend the day at home
and prepare for Game 3."

The Detroit News's Bob Wojnowski spoke magnanimously regarding the Wings' need to worry about matching the Sharks' level of intensity, attention to detail, and execution instead of worrying about playing against the Sharks and the referees...

May 3, Detroit News: It was ridiculous how many penalties the Wings took in Game 2 on
Sunday night, and while there were some questionable calls, there's
little question what's happening here. Once again, the Sharks leaped on
their chances and were quick to the puck, and the Wings couldn't stymie
them.

Once again, San Jose attacked constantly, peppered Jimmy
Howard with a staggering 45 shots and hung on for a 4-3 victory, seizing
a 2-0 series lead. Obviously, the Sharks are the top seed for a
reason, lots of reasons, including the scoring machine that is Joe
Pavelski. His third-period goal, followed by Joe Thornton's winner with
7:23 left, rallied San Jose to the victory. The Sharks have too many
Joes for the Wings right now, who had better find their feet immediately
Tuesday night at Joe Louis Arena.

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The Wings have the stars to match up, and I
suspect they'll rebound at home. They certainly had a shot to win
either of these two tight games, especially with Pavel Datsyuk playing
well. But my goodness, where's their defense? Where's their famous
discipline?

Howard actually was very good but had scattered help
in front of him. All the penalty time was a major impediment, no doubt,
but the Wings were outshot 45-31 and destroyed on faceoffs.

...

[I]f this is going to turn around, the Wings need more than Datsyuk racing
up and down the ice. He was dangerous all night, as was Tomas Holmstrom
battling in front of Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov. Beyond that, the
Wings spent a lot of time trying to survive, especially at the outset.
They were outshot 9-2 early, yet grabbed a 1-0 lead on a blast by
Datsyuk.

...

On Thornton's winner, the Sharks swept in on an odd-man rush after
Nick Lidstrom broke his stick on a one-timer, a tough break. Nothing
Lidstrom could do about that, but the Sharks showed how quickly they can
seize an opportunity. The Wings have reasons to be frustrated,
for sure. They just need to make sure they address their defensive
issues before they worry about anything else.

However, as I am not a journalist, but am a subjective Red Wings fan who covers the team he roots for, the Free Press's Evil Drew Sharp gets the last word--because he's plain old [peeved] off:

May 3, Detroit Free Press: This wasn't merely theft. This was grand larceny. If it's possible for the home team to steal a victory, San Jose did exactly that. And when they dust the Game 2 crime scene for fingerprints, they will discover some belonging to the guys in the striped shirts.

However...

Some players privately expressed their disdain over the officiating,
but the public response stayed on the high road.

"You can't let it
get to you," Henrik Zetterberg said. "But it's definitely tougher to
win games when you're in the box that much."

Coach Mike Babcock
wisely didn't take the bait when reporters asked for his commentary on
the unevenness of the calls. He would have been justified, but when you
have enjoyed the success that the Wings have over the years, it's better
focusing on what you could have done better -- like winning more
face-offs. Nobody wants to hear the rich kids complaining about
the unfairness of life.

...

The Sharks had the
man advantage for a 4-and-1/2 -minute stretch in the third period thanks to
three successive calls against the Wings. Babcock could only
laugh on the bench after Niklas Kronwall's suspect hooking call against
Pavelski gave San Jose another 5-on-3 at a crucial juncture, same as the
start of the third period in Game 1. But that was nothing compared to
the love tap Todd Bertuzzi gave Marc-Edouard Vlasic from behind in back
of the San Jose net. Vlasic performed a dive worthy of a Sonny Liston
bout, but it was Bertuzzi who sat for two minutes....

The series isn’t over. The Wings haven’t played poorly,
short of the first 10 minutes of Game 1 when they searched for their
lost legs. But they find themselves in a perilous predicament. They must
win both games in Detroit or risk the Sharks seizing a lead that
perhaps even they couldn’t choke away.

“We can’t focus on anything
but the next game,” said Nicklas Lidstrom. “Game 3 is all that matters
now. We just have to shake this off and move forward and hopefully
things might shift in our direction.”

I'm glad that the team's reacted classily to the adversity they've faced, and now I'm putting my faith and hope in the fact that they usually back it up when they say they'll learn from their mistakes--regardless of whether those mistakes are real or induced by feats of officiating imagination.